Infighting splits German Euroscepticism just when Cameron needs it
Jonathan Lindsell, 7 July 2015
Alternative for Germany (AfD), the party that was founded on the basis of middle-class intellectual criticism of the single currency, has ousted its academic leader Bernd Lucke in favour of Frauke Petry. Previously Petry, Lucke and Konrad Adam shared power in an uncertain triumvirate, but co-founder Petry was voted to sole leadership by 68% of her party in an extraordinary congress in Essen last Saturday. This was a clear rejection of Lucke’s moderate ‘Wake Up Call’ campaign, which prominently featured André Yorulmaz, a half-Turkish man in a same sex relationship.
Since AfD’s founding in 2013, Lucke had tried to focus on a critique of the euro and a rejection of traditional left-right politics. Tension grew when Petry’s faction began to campaign on policies against immigration, closer ties to Russia, and for boosting German family size. Lucke was afraid that AfD would appear too close to the Pegida (‘Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamisation of the West’) movement and alienate mainstream voters. So far AfD has won seats in five state parliaments and seven seats in the European Parliament. It missed out on Bundestag representation by just 0.3% of the last general election vote.
David Cameron would be hoping for AfD unity and growth in the years leading up to 2017. This would put pressure on the larger central parties such as Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats to consider more EU-critical positions, positions that would allow Cameron to win more in his renegotiation of Britain’s membership. Recent developments in Greece should have helped the party since they proved AfD’s original principal, that the euro would split the EU by making southern European economies uncompetitive, hurting long term continental unity.
Instead, AfD has a serious but lopsided split. At the Essen conference Petry supporters booed Lucke and waved football style red cards at him. He did not stand for any other party office, meaning he is now wholly removed from the leadership but remains an MEP. One other MEP, Hans-Olaf Henkel, has already resigned, saying the AfD will now be ‘the NDP in sheep’s clothing’. (The National Democratic Party, is overtly neo-Nazi.) Three other MEPs may join him. The third founder, Adam, told German media he is considering withdrawal, concerned by the ‘beer hall slogans’ Essen participants were shouting, especially the chant of ‘Petry Heil!’
Such accusations are unlikely to help promote the party’s mainstream image, or use, to Cameron as allies. Lucke accused Petry of creating a ‘Pegida Party’, a tactic that could easily backfire since Pegida is itself split. In January its leader Lutz Bachmann had to resign over a photo of himself posing as Adolf Hitler, and his replacement Kathrin Oertel almost immediately formed a splinter-group to isolate far-right and hooligan tendencies.
Of course it remains possible that AfD will gain electoral momentum under Petry, and could take advantage of the Greek crisis, but the party’s credibility in the European Parliament, where its MEPs sit with the British Conservative-led ECR group, may become strained.